…hypnotic in its flow every song in the three sections of the suite a masterpiece of compressed story-telling…–Gary Lucas guitarist/composer (from the liner notes)

Press Quotes – The FreeSongSuite

“A jazz singer who makes her notes slow wide and meaningful she often sounds like an evening-out of Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln Fay Victor uses a great and simple concept on The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue Music) a studio recording organized like a live set. This means the band flows from one song into another without knowing where it’s going next these songs have distinct melodic character: fascinating ballads with Anders Nilsson’s country-bluesy guitar soloing drum chants and some careful free improvising”
—Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

“The whole thing is as if Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics for a lost Betty Carter prog-rock albumand it totally works. –NPR – 10 Greatest Moments from Jazz Recordings in 2009

Fay Victor has a rich commanding voice that’s matched by a sense of adventure like Betty Carter if that late singer hung around the current Downtown New York scene. Guitarist Anders Nilsson bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Michael T.A. Thompson work closely with Victor combining free improvisation blues and some kind of rock styles, they always stay on an even keel with the vocals whose ease blurs the lines between written word and spontaneous story.–Mike Shanley JazzTimes

“Victor’s rich creamy voice reminds me of heavy hitters like Betty Carter Abbey Lincoln and Jeanne Lee and like them she’s restlessly creative carving out her own unpredictable path…no matter what’s happening around her she’s always a highly communicative singer. Her original material has an ingrained storytelling quality that comes through even when the music is relatively abstract”–Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

“Victor’s soulful emotive delivery combines with avant-tinged invention placing her alongside great vocal innovators like Betty Carter Jeanne Lee Sheila Jordan, a truly creative singer with the chops to accomplish whatever she wants but the good taste to ensure that substance always trumps style…The Freesong Suite is a vocal album that stands well above the pack; a welcome respite from the unwieldy preponderance of unimaginative vocal jazz albums hitting the market.”
—John Kelman, allaboutjazz.com

“The Fay Victor Ensemble’s The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue 2009) is a tour de force of writing improvisation and performance. Victor and her band paint one fluid word picture after another linking these composed sections with free playing that is smart muscular and emotional. From free improv to the blues to alt-rock and back again The FreeSong Suite is easily one of my top 10 records of 2009.”
–-Jason Crane The Jazz Session

“It’s rare in jazz for a singer to serve as anything other than the spotlit centerpiece but Fay Victor is an unusually generous bandleader. That diplomacy allows the New York native to stretch her warm alto around elongated figures and conceptual compositions on last year’s The FreeSong Suite a fearless foray stringing together several motifs into one stream-of-consciousness whole.”–-Areif Sless-Kitain, Time Out Chicago

“Victor scats vocalizes chirps mumbles and sings bluesy chromatics or angular displays of dexterity delivering the unexpected with beauty depth and innovation.”
— Wilbur MacKenzie All About Jazz-New York

The FreeSong Suite has the feeling of something new and significant. It lifts her above the ranks of most female jazz singers not only with what it delivers but also with the even greater rewards it promises.Music Grade: A
–Lloyd Sachs, Vinyl Blues

Victor has the chops the phrasing the band and the courage to make contemporary music that references contemporary culture and materials that range from Carter to Berberian to Sun Ra to Hendrix. This is sheer unadulterated brilliance. Buy it!”
—Nilan Perera, Exclaim.ca – Canada’s Music Authority

“What you hear on this album is raw and quirky and powerful and full of feeling and surprise and particularities that reflect universal human truths. One of the unique listening experiences of this or any other year.”–– Mike Chamberlain, Hour – Montreal’s weekly Entertainment magazine

“One of the most interesting voices to have emerged in recent years, always manages magically to be herself and to propose a music that looks forward cleverly mixing elements from past and present.”
— Mauritzio Comandini All About Jazz – Italia

WOW! Very impressive record! A splendid record from the very first listen.— Francois Couture Monsieur Delire

This is one of the most astonishing jazz-vocal albums I have ever heard–right up there with Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” in its dazzling interplay of vocal with tight ensemble passages and total engagement of the senses (including, most importantly, one of the senses not really played up on the Lincoln/Roach opus–namely, the sense of humor!).

Fay Victor is a supremely gifted American vocalist who has made a name for herself allover Europe and lately NYC with her expressive and supple smoky-hued voice, which moves from a throaty, intimate whisper to a full throttle scream of ecstasy here on “The Freesong Suite”, a staggering collection of songs composed by Fay and Jochem van Dijk that run the gamut from stop-start meandering European art- song, sly references to down home African-American blues commingled with the liberating skirling lines of free-jazz– even excursions into rock territory. In sum, a marvelous kaleidoscopic showcase for Fay Victor’s considerable melodic gifts and purity of tone–and for the muscular support of her instrumental group–a brilliant and sympathetic crew of improvisers that includes at Anders Nilsson on electric guitar and effects, Ken Filiano on double bass and effects, and Michael TA Thompson on drums and percussion.

The recording itself is a wonder of transparence and clarity–you feel you are right there smack dab in the center of the room with this ensemble–and the mix sympathetically brings Fay’s warm-hearted vocals to the fore, the other instruments weaving in and out over the course of the album when it’s their turn to speak. And how eloquent they are! I recommend this album to the legions of bored listeners out there–it is hypnotic in its flow, every song in the three sections of the suite a masterpiece of compressed story-telling. And like the best story-tellers, Fay and co. know how to cast a spell and keep things interesting throughout, with a line of seemingly inexhaustible melodic, harmonic and rhythmic invention utterly captivating in its playful charm. The mood shifts from sunny and breezy to chill in the space of a few bars, and you are swept along in the headlong rush of ideas. They rarely–hell, they just don’t make albums as good as this anymore—a major reason for celebration. To the Victor belongs the spoils! —
GL